New Top General Could Mean Changes for Afghan Airstrikes

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New Top General Could Mean Changes for Afghan Airstrikes

Over and over again, the Taliban have turned American airstrikes gone awry into PR jackpots. Yet America's air power policy remains fundamentally unchanged: When ground forces start exchanging fire with militants, in come the bombers and the fighter jets. Sometimes they're flying to help out soldiers or marines who are really threatened; sometimes the danger is minimal. But when a "troops in contact" situation is declared, pilots have much more leeway to drop their bombs. Many of the careful processes the Air Force uses to avoid civilian casualties are dropped.

New American leadership in the region just might bring a fresh look at how U.S. forces strike from the skies, however. A meeting in Virginia last night persuaded me to take a second look at the Senate testimony of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the incoming commander for Afghanistan. Not only does he worry that "the perception caused by civilian casualties" could be "strategically decisive against us" in that conflict. He also promised a top-down review "with the goal of not putting ourselves in a position, except when we have to protect American or coalition of Afghanistan forces, actual survival, from positions where we create civilian casualties." More excerpts, after the jump...

In Afghanistan, faced with a determined and unconstrained foe, precision and discipline are essential – from limited but necessary airstrikes, to small-unit search and detention operations. If confirmed, I would emphasize that how we conduct operations is vital to success.

This is a critical point. It may be the critical point. This is a struggle for the support of the Afghan people. Our willingness to operate in ways that minimize casualties or damage, even when doing so makes our task more difficult, is essential to our credibility. I cannot overstate my commitment to the importance of this concept...

Sir, I believe the perception caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous things we face in Afghanistan, particularly with the Afghan people, the Pashtun most likely.

So I think that we've got to recognize that that is a way to lose their faith and lose their support, and that would be strategically decisive against us. So my intent, if confirmed, is to review all of our existing rules of engagement, review all of our tactical directives, get with all of our forces with the goal of not putting ourselves in a position, except when we have to protect American or coalition of Afghanistan forces, actual survival, from positions where we create civilian casualties.

Now, I prefer to say – as you know, with the chaos of war it's difficult to say "always" or "ever," but certainly I think it's got to be viewed as a critical requirement for us.

SEN. REED: One of the aspects of your mission, not only to attack and disrupt the Taliban and the other elements there but to minimize casualties is the use of technology, like UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. Do you think you have enough of those? Do you need more?

GEN. MCCHRYSTAL: Sir, I sort of have a history of saying I've never had enough and I can't ever envision a day when I'd say that an operation I'm involved in has enough ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance]. That said, there has been significant increase in Afghanistan this year, and by the end of this year it's going to be significantly more.

But every time you've got more ISR, you get more precision. Every time you get more precision, then what you can do is you can reduce civilian casualties. You can also reduce impact on civilian population. If you are going after an individual and the operation goes after a single house or a single compound and you don't affect the whole village, you don't have a negative impact on everyone else.

So while ISR is not a panacea for everything, the more you've got, the smarter you are as a force and the more precise you can be. And so I'm just a huge believer. Everything we can do to continue to increase that will be of value.